Westford Market Basket donates food to seniors

Though the two Market Baskets in Westford remain empty, managers are looking at a new way to distribute food to the community.

By Lindsey O'Donnelllhodonnell@wickedlocal.com

Though the two Market Baskets in Westford remain empty, managers are looking at a new way to distribute food to the community.

The Market Basket in Westford Valley Marketplace, known colloquially as the old Market Basket, donated 17 shopping carts full of bread, bagels, donuts and other perishable products to the Cameron Senior Center, Monday afternoon. A newere Market Basket Supermarket is located in town at Cornerstone Square.

As employees stand outside of both Westford stores protesting the ousting of former president Arthur T. Demoulas, customers are staging their own protest by refusing to buy products from the store under the new management team.

The fiasco has left the grocery shelves bare, but as the few perishable products remaining approach their expiration dates, managers are looking for ways to give away the food.

Bob McGough, who has been an assistant manager at the Market Basket at Westford Valley Marketplace for 10 years, said the donation was a matter of making sure food doesn’t go to waste.

"We’re not in the habit of wasting good food," he said. "We didn’t want it to just go stale on the shelves."

In the midst of the protests against the ousting, which is a cause of a long-standing family feud between Arthur T. Demoulas and his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas, who has taken control of the board of directors, McGough said support on a local level has been overwhelming.

"Public sentiment has been very humbling. I can’t believe the support we’re getting," he said.

He added the store has only donated to the senior center and food pantry, and no other organizations around town.

Sheehan said the 17 carts arrived yesterday at the senior center, which also contains the town’s food pantry. Though Sheehan wasn’t sure how many people took bread, she said that as of Wednesday morning, there were only three carts left.

Most of the food was distributed to the food pantry, but Sheehan said some went to the senior center’s kitchen and other products were given to low-income supportive housing facilities such as the Westford Village at Mystery Spring on Tadmuck Road.

"They also offered us bananas, but we didn’t take those because they’d go bad," she said.

Sheehan said she anticipates more bread products to arrive from Market Basket on Thursday.

Generally, the community and businesses around town are very generous with giving donations to the pantry, said Sheehan. Restaurants from around town, for example, might give food or gift cards a few times a year.

But, she stressed, she has never seen a donation of this size from a business.

"We don’t usually get a supermarket on the phone telling us they have food they want to give us," said Sheehan.